From Longman Dictionary of Contemporary Englishrhetoricrhet‧o‧ric /ˈretərɪk/ ●○○ noun [uncountable] 1 ALlanguage that is used to persuade or influence people, especially language that sounds impressive but is not actually sincere or useful The speech was dismissed by some people as merely political rhetoric.rhetoric of the rhetoric of socialism2 PERSUADEthe art of speaking or writing to persuade or influence people
Examples from the Corpus
rhetoric• Don't try to fool us with all those facts and bureaucratic rhetoric.• Indeed, since the Dec. 24 election Mr Erbakan has been backpedaling on much of his campaign rhetoric.• The answer must be hope that things might just improve; that one day soon reality will match rhetoric.• Mr Papandreou's Pasok, embittered and demoralised, remains unable to evolve from unreconstructed popularism and anti-right rhetoric.• Emanuel Shinwell's rhetoric, and the arguments which Crosland himself had developed in his writing, could not be brushed aside.• In an interesting discussion of varieties of egalitarianism, Plant attacks the rhetoric that links freedom only with consumer choice.• With the election just two weeks away, the rhetoric on both sides is building.• the rhetoric of campaigning politicians• Pyongyang limited itself to rhetoric, and was cautious even in its comments about the dramatic developments in the South.• Gingrich, however, is loathe to give up the familiar anti-Washington rhetoric that proved so popular in recent campaigns.political rhetoric• Rome shocked me by flouting the conventional political rhetoric of environmentalists.• Coming in the midst of a presidential campaign, the air attack has generated the inevitable political rhetoric, bombast and pressure.• All the noise being made about the hostages at that time was just political rhetoric.• As democracy is, at present, the only permissible political rhetoric, the ruling class duly speaks its language.• We should now cast aside all the political rhetoric of the campaign.• All the political rhetoric about big government protecting the weak and the poor is coming into question as well.• But how are we to cut through the political rhetoric to see what lies behind the disagreement?• This political rhetoric would lead one to suppose that the subsequent proposals would be of an equally clear political substance.Origin rhetoric (1300-1400) Old French rethorique, from Latin, from Greek rhetorike, from rhetor “public speaker”, from eirein “to say, speak” 